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Promise, not powerhouse

I went to a fund-raiser at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Ellisville, Mo., last night. St. John’s is known as the Lutheran Megachurch. Last year it made a list (I forget the source) of 200 outstanding Protestant churches in the United States.
St. John’s does just about everything my home church, Faith Lutheran in Oakville, Mo., does, but it generally does it bigger and better because it has more people and more money. This was the church where I received a quickie crash course in video training about a year ago.

They pretty much blew me away. We’ve got some outstanding musicians at Faith, but St. John’s has dozens of outstanding musicians. On very special occasions we’ll write our own material at Faith (I co-wrote a song a couple of years ago with our now-departed music director) but they do this kind of thing all the time.

“Some day, some day,” I muttered to myself and to the seminary student I went with.

Yeah, I was impressed, but I’m not going to defect. Every time the thought even crosses my mind, a few lines I wrote to someone about four years ago come back. “Sincerity once was everything, and loyalty was absolutely priceless. But you wanted powerhouse, not promise, so now they’re not worth anything.”

I’m not that kind of guy. I’d rather take part in the building of something cool than just have it fall in my lap. There’s something about being able to watch it develop. And when it’s reached powerhouse status, you get the satisfaction of knowing you played a role–however small–in it getting there. Besides, I absolutely hate Manchester Road, which is the street where St. John’s is located.

I need to spend more time at St. John’s, so I may even make a trek up there a monthly thing. We need to learn from them. We’ve worked together in the past, but we ought to do that more.